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Studies of the thermal environment in enclosures exposed on a single side: a case study in Northern India.

Article Excerpt
Introduction

Studies available in literature on thermal performance of buildings have explicitly evinced the potential of various passive cooling techniques like application of heat reflecting coatings on exterior building surfaces, provision of double glazing and ample night ventilation towards amelioration of an uncomfortable thermal environment in buildings. These studies are devoted to enclosures, which have multiple facade exposures in different directions. However, buildings normally consist of multiple enclosures, each having one wall exposed to outside and the remaining three sides common with adjacent rooms. Although Chand, (1969) and Givoni, (1962) conducted detailed studies on augmentation of natural ventilation in single-sided exposed enclosures related to amelioration of an uncomfortable indoor thermal environment through adoption of passive cooling techniques in the above type of enclosures, research studies are scanty. Since saving energy for cooling indoor air is an important consideration in the design of buildings, and the single sided exposed enclosure is a feature of the majority of buildings, it is pertinent to assess the benefit accruable in respect of thermal comfort indoors due to implementation of passive cooling techniques in design of enclosures with exposure on one side only. With this in mind, studies covering the effect of variation in heat reflectivity on exposed building envelopes, nocturnal ventilation and provision of double-glazing in windows on indoor environmental temperature and discomfort degree hours have been undertaken for a typical conference room of a building with a central corridor located at Roorkee.

Description of the Test Room

The room modeled under investigation is a typical room 11 x 6 x 3 m high located in the main building of Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee, India (29.87N, 77.88E). The longer wall exposed to the outside is of normal 23 cm thick brick wall construction with 1.5 cm cement plaster on both the sides. There are three windows each 2.4 x 1.5 m high covering about 33 percent of wall area in this wall. The windows are symmetrically located along the wall, and the height of sill is 0.75 m above the floor. Horizontal projections each 0.85 m deep are provided at sill and top of windows over the entire wall width. Vertical projections each 0.65 m deep and spaced 0.85 m from each other are also provided in between the horizontal projections. Thus, the entire window wall is protected against direct solar radiation. The other long wall of the room is common to a 2.5 m wide central corridor whose other side also has a row of rooms. Two doors each 1 x 2 m high provide access to the test room from the corridor side. The doors are fitted with 4 cm thick wooden shutters that are normally kept closed. The test room is located in between two identical rooms, which are used for normal office activities. The roof is a 10 cm thick reinforced cement concrete slab with 1.5 cm thick plaster on its interior side. The roof covering consists of 5 cm thick mud phuska covered with 5 cm brick tiles.

Performance Evaluation

Thermal performance of a building may...

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